Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 299-014
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 1971 at 2:51 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Goldwater, Barry M.
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/299-014

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[19:46] My name is Chicago, please.
[19:57] Yeah.
[19:59] Yes.
[20:01] Very.
[20:03] Just had, uh...
[20:05] Pat Boone and his lovely wife were his daughters, and they just raved about your appearance in Atlanta.
[20:14] Told about your flight in the airplane and all that, what you said, but he said, you know, we've just got to get very cool water out across this country tomorrow.
[20:22] So I thought you'd like to know that you've got some fans going, and I appreciate what you said.
[20:27] Well, I had, of course, been before us.
[20:32] one of those New York audiences, and I hate them, although we had armed friends there, but, you know, they're so unspontaneous, you know, but, yeah, from New York.
[20:46] I, incidentally, I hit the, I thought you'd be interested to know the defense thing very hard.
[20:50] In Chicago, I thought you'd be interested to know, I said, now look here, for those that say we should lay down this burden of defense, I said, if we lay it down, no other free nation's gonna pick it up, and we can't leave this vacuum, then what I'll just say is,
[21:02] I said, now, I had to make a very difficult decision on this.
[21:06] I said, I had to make a test decision on that, testing a defensive weapon, which was already, of course, tested.
[21:18] And, of course, I laid it all out by saying if we get arms control, we should do this and that.
[21:22] But then I went on to say, I said, now, many people objected to that very strongly because they were concerned about the risk to the environment.
[21:30] I said, I'm concerned about the environment.
[21:33] And I think we have some very good programs, very good mission environment.
[21:36] I said, if we don't defend this country, we aren't going to have anybody by the environment to protect us.
[21:41] And I think we ought to hit deadline very, you know.
[21:44] Not many people are nuts on that subject.
[21:53] me say one other thing on the answer to me you know going forward and that's essential because we had our pbm and everything was down to you know for a year so we did it and it didn't it didn't blow up the arctic and the seals were still swimming yeah i wish you'd tell some of our good
[22:14] if you have a stroke with them, you know, and serve your friends, like fucking others, you've got them, and I know you disarm her, you know, and I'm fighting.
[22:21] Because you know, it's just the Congress is trying to disarm them, and Barry, I'm not.
[22:28] Yeah.
[22:28] Yeah.
[22:29] What, 10 years of McNamara, for Christ's sakes, they, the Russians, have caught us now.
[22:32] Now we're just, we're just, and listen, if we don't get arms control, I guess we just walked in, let me tell you, we're going to turn, we're going to start going.
[22:41] I can prove you that, I can tell you that.